


I Believe In Heroes

by kaotiskplatonisk



Series: The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Dorks [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Iron Man - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Compliant, Earth's Mightiest Dorks, For the most part, Humor, Imminent Tears, M/M, Name Your Goddamn Element Already, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, tony - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 21:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaotiskplatonisk/pseuds/kaotiskplatonisk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He isn't a soldier. He isn't one to lay down on a wire to save someone else. That doesn't particularly hurt Tony, not anymore. But Yinsen would.<br/>And Yinsen did, took a shot for Tony, became one of a handful of that precious miracle; a person who saw something in Tony Stark worth saving.<br/>He wonders if Phil Coulson saw it, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Believe In Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Hej! Here's some ten-cent mixture of heartbreaking and sweetheart. Setting alternates between Avengers and post-Avengers, so spoilers for that. Also includes a ton of Iron Man references/spoilers, and a bucketfull of Yinsen feels.  
> I wrote this because Tony Stark needs to name his goddamn element already Christ on a cracker.  
> Muse-ic: Dog Days Are Over by Florence and the Machine  
> Cheers!

 

** (Then) **

"Phil Coulson died, still believing in that idea. In heroes."

And that was the killing blow, wasn't it.

Tony was up out of his chair before he realized that he'd moved. Fury and Rogers are looking at him, waiting for some smart-ass quip to cover up the raw wound of Coulson's death. But Tony can't find anything to say.

Because Yinsen had died believing in heroes. Believing in Tony. And after all his struggle, his moral redemption, his rebirth from that godforsaken cave in Afghanistan, he was still as helpless to stop the death of a good man as he was years ago, crouching over a body bleached red with blood.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't. He left the room with careening vision and heat racing across his eyelids, angry with Fury, angry with whoever was left of this ridiculous superhero boy band, angry with himself. Angry because he knew Fury had played that angle for a reason, and he'd hooked him line and sinker. Angry because no matter what happened after this moment, he was a part of something bigger now, and although Tony Stark was many things, he wasn't a coward.

Before the pneumatic automated door slid shut behind him, he heard Fury sigh.

"Well, maybe it's an old-fashioned notion."

And there was Steve's angle, right on cue.

 

** (Now) **

"Who let me adult? I can't adult. We know this. Why am I adulting."

There really was this thin line between loving and hating Tony Stark. And if you loved him, then that implied you hated him a little bit too sometimes.

Like now. Now was a good example.

"Hey, c'mon buckethead! We're gonna be late," Clint called to him via comm from the cockpit of the Quinjet (which Tony was still adamantly insisting be called the Avenjet), strapping into the copilot's seat. Natasha was already cycling the repulsor thrusters from her place beside him, chattering at Air Traffic Control through an earpiece. Thor was buckled in, too, under promise of Pop-Tarts if he behaved. Otherwise he would've been fleeing for the Bifröst. Midgardian politics made him severely uncomfortable, and if he hadn't known any better, Tony would've thought the Asgardian heir apparent was scared witless by them. In Asgard, politics was relatively simple- bloodline decided inheritance, but sheer talent and tenacity decided how far a person could climb the social ladder. Disputes were settled with swords and flying fists, not lawsuits.

Bruce would be meeting them in DC, because Bruce and altitudes- no. No, that was a terrible, terrible thought.

Steve had been trying to convince Tony to emerge from his Island of Misfit Robots for the past fifteen minutes, a good chunk of that spent making promises that yes, they'll stop for Starbucks on the ride back. Even then, Tony had been adamant he stay, that no, he wasn't going to willingly step foot inside a Congressional building again, he'd called a group of senators assclowns last time and why were they inviting him back? Besides, he was midway through a project that he was absolutely loathe to abandon.

Avengers Tower was in need of an OS update on its power source, a standard replace-the-reactor-that-

powers-the-building type thing, a hassle that only came around once every few years, the cost of being the only completely clean energy source in New York.

And to assemble the replacement reactor, he'd be needing a batch of the homemade element he'd invented back when his biggest worry had been a bit of palladium in his blood and a crazy Russian guy. So his workshop was now in what Tony had dubbed 'hardware mode'. He was lugging around a socket wrench that was about as big as his entire torso and talking schematics with Jarvis.

Steve paused in his wheedling to take a closer look at the hologram Tony pulled from the display at his workbench. A tiny orb of light surrounded by small orbiting satellites fell into his palm, and as Tony stretched it and studied the composite parts, Steve recognized its shape. It was an atom. The freckles of light moving rapidly around their host had to be electrons. He'd heard of Tony's element, but until now, had never seen it. He figured geniuses like Tony could afford to invent an entirely new element and then just keep on working at something different without a second thought.

"That's it, then?" Steve asks, sitting on a stray stool beside the bench. Tony looks at him through the cheerful blue glow of an electron, and flashes him a brief genuine smile. Steve covets those like gold stars.

"This? Yeah. No patent on it yet, I just make a new batch whenever I need it," A certain crazy Russian had taught him that, to never leave spare parts lying around because one day somebody could decide to settle an old score with you and steal a bunch of blueprints and make a bootlegged arc reactor in their basement and then boom, Whiplash. Notoriously not fun.

"What did you name it?"

Tony blinks. He'd gotten that a lot, from reporters, journalists, the like, all clamoring over Tony Stark the wunderkind of modern science and his revolutionization of the periodic table. But Steve had never asked. Never asked about Afghanistan or the palladium scare, about why Tony hated omelets so much or how Rhodey had commandeered the War Machine armor. He let Tony tell him in his own time, instead. And that was… nice.

"What? No. Like I said, jury's still out on the whole patent thing. Tried to call it badassium, but apparently that's 'not appropriate to print onto revised versions of the periodic table'. They wanna call it Starkium. Doesn't have the same ring to it."

Steve smiled. Only Tony Stark wouldn't jump at the chance to have an an element named after him. His sense of priority was totally thrown, though, being the most expensive human being in the western hemisphere, so that sort of explained that.

"If I let you finish up here will you come with us to DC?"

"But politicians are so  boring . Their life's goal is to suck the joy out of life and pawn off their little red-white-and-blue campaign buttons. That's it. That's literally it, they are Doombots with sleazy smiles and plans for health care reform. Period."

"Tony…"

"DC means Congress. Congress means cranky Tony. Cranky Tony is not good for group morale."

"Tony, you're talking about yourself in the third person, I'm cutting you off. I'll go get you a change of clothes, be finished up with that when I get back."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

 

** (Then) **

"He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot."

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone."

"He was doing his job."

"He was out of his league. He should've waited. He should've-"

He should've stuck to the plan.

"Sometimes there is no way out, Tony."

"Right. Never heard that before."

"This the first time you've lost a soldier?"

Something in Tony snaps. Maybe it's Steve himself, or it's Steve's words, but suddenly that rippling heat is back and his lungs don't seem keen on cooperating with him.

"We are  not soldiers!"

Steve keeps his composure in check, doesn't rise to the bait and argue with Tony, although he wishes he would. Yelling would be so much easier than… this. Whatever this is.

Coulson took a blade to the chest to save a group of outliers. Yinsen took a bullet to the stomach to save a man convinced he was beyond salvation.

A man who has everything. And nothing.

He isn't a soldier. He isn't one to lay down on a wire to save someone else. That doesn't particularly hurt Tony, not anymore. But Yinsen would. 

And Yinsen  did, took a shot for Tony, became one of a handful of that precious miracle; a person who saw something in Tony Stark worth saving.

He wonders if Phil Coulson saw it, too.

 

** (Now) **

When Steve enters Tony's periphery again it's with fresh clothes and a mug of coffee from the kitchenette upstairs in the penthouse. There is a reason why Tony loves this man, and this might just be it.

Tony's got his hands on a pair of tongs, is gently trying to place the badassium (totally happening) core into its housing unit. He'll be done once it's in. Incredible what he can accomplish in ten minutes of solitude. Steve sets his gifts down on the adjacent workbench and watches him work for a few seconds.

"I can do that, you know." Steve says, gesturing to the little highly volatile jigsaw puzzle on the bench between them. Tony glances up.

"I'm fine."

"Go drink your coffee, I need you caffeinated if you're going to be in a room full of politicians. I can do it."

"It's like Operation. Don't touch the edges." Tony vaguely wonders if Steve even knows what Operation is, but he's nodding his head anyway, that's a good sign. He wanders over to his coffee mug and then makes himself useful by peering around Steve's arm as the super soldier carefully picks up the core with the tongs and lets it hover over its casing. It glows faintly in the shadow of its handler.

"Steady hands," Tony mutters, and why does that hurt? Why is there pain? Deep in the center of his chest, hovering over the reactor. 

Steve moves with precision, efficiency, two things that seriously appeal to the engineer in Tony. Also, he's adorable when he concentrates.

"Huh. Nice work," Tony remarks as the core slips into its glass house without complaint. Steve puts the tongs down, a small bow to his lips the only sign he'd heard Tony's praise.

"Haven't had a good assistant sin- in a while." A tight feeling knots itself inside Tony's chest. He stares at the little core flickering in pale blue bursts. It looked so similar to the arc reactor, the same light, just a different shape and size.

Is this what Yinsen saw when he looked at him, even before the palladium core replaced that goddamn car battery? Did he see that little circle of light in his chest, over his heart, a tiny reminder that underneath the visage of a sinner there was still something in Tony worth saving? That Tony was somehow worthy of redemption?

Tony smiles at his little creation. It's part of his legacy, this unassuming blue glow, what he chooses to leave behind.

He could've done a lot worse.

"I think," Tony says at Steve's shoulder. He smiles up at him when Steve turns, "I figured out what it's going to say on that patent."

"You'll name it?" Steve asks, taking his hand. This was part of his legacy, too, maybe; what he had found in Steve. Tony picks up the new reactor, turning it over and over in his free palm. This would bring sustained clean energy for years. It would shape a brighter future.

Tony could drink to that.

"Yinsium," he says, "It's called Yinsium."


End file.
